英語と中国語を同時に学ぶ！ CCTV Growing up with Chinese英文書き取り1500分100本勝負

大家好, hi everyone, 欢迎收看我们今天的成长汉语节目. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Growing up with Chinese.

Now last episode we covered some of the basics of basketball lingo in Chinese. 小明 and Mike certainly seemed excited to be playing. They’ve got a friendly rivalry going on with a classmate of theirs 小刚, and today they are all hitting the court again.

So, what does today’s game have in store for them? Well, let’s head over to the basketball court and find out.

你可别小瞧我们班. Don’t you look down at our class or don’t you underestimate our class. 小瞧 means to be little, look down upon or slight*1. And it’s very similar to 小看. After all, 瞧 means to see or look just like 看.

我今天要给你们一点儿颜色看看. Today I’m going to teach all of you lesson. 颜色 we’ve covered before it means color. But in the context of this sentence, 给你们一点儿颜色看看. It’s how you say teach you all lesson. Hmm, they better watch out.

等着瞧, 还有两节. Wait and see there are still two more quarters. 等着瞧 is a set saying meaning wait and see or just you wait and see. Now 节 in the context of basketball, refers to quarters. 两节比赛 two quarters of the game.

你今天可是我们班的大功臣. You’ve been the star of our class today. 功臣 means a person who has rendered outstanding service. And Mike certainly was an integral part of their winning the game. But he hasn’t believed it was all his doing.

你别谦虚了, 你今天发挥得也很好. Don’t be modest, you are in great form*2 today, too. 谦虚 is the term for modest or modesty. And 发挥 is a fabulous word that can mean “bring into play*3,” “give play or scope to*4*5” or “give rein to*6*7.”

投得准, 又注意传球. Your shot was on, or accurate and you paid attention to passing the ball. 准 means accurate and 注意 means pay attention or take note*8 to. 注意传球. Pay attention to passing the ball.

什么超水平发挥, 这是我们的正常水平. What are you talking about being beyond top form? This is our normal level of play. 超 means super, extra or over. So 超人 incidentally is how you say superman in Chinese. 超水平发挥 is to perform at a level that is beyond the norm, a super performance. 水平 means standard or level as in performance standard or living standard.

我们快送他去医务室. Let’s get him to the clinic fast. 医务室 means clinic and I just want to point out the use of 送 in this sentence. They’re going to take 小明 to the clinic, right? So that’s why 送 is used. They will accompany him, take him there.

Today’s radical is pretty interesting because in a radical list, it doesn’t look too different from the mouth radical or 口子旁. It’s called the four sided frame or 大口框. All right, so I’m gonna write it out for you guys, but it really doesn’t look like much different from mouth or 口.

OK, so there we go, does look like 口, doesn’t it. Now we see it in the 图 of 图书馆 or library. So this is how this radical works. There it is, here is its inside component, and you close off the big box.

Now, characters that have this radical oftentimes have a meaning that is related to encirclement*9, it looks like a big mouth, doesn’t it? Hence the name 大口框 big mouth frame. Now 图 on its own means picture, drawing or chart.

Spotlight

I’m guessing that a lot of you know at least something about the Chinese zodiac, and at the very least you probably know the animal associated with the year you were born.

So for those of you who aren’t so familiar with the Chinese zodiac, it cycles every twelve years and each year has an animal that is associated with it. So the order of the animals goes like this: the year of the rat followed by the year of the ox, followed by the year of the tiger, and then it’s the year of the rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and finally pig. It’s quite the eclectic*10 assortment of animals, is it not?

Now, just so you’re all clear, Chinese new year marks the beginning of each animal’s year, so it’s not a clear-cut*11 on January first the zodiac animal changes. It changes on Chinese new year’s day.

Now I think I have mentioned before that one of the ways people in China ask for your age is by asking what your Chinese zodiac animal is. Because it cycles every twelve years, you can be pretty accurate in figuring out someone’s age if you’re familiar with the cycle. And very similar to the Western zodiac, different animals are attributed to having different weaknesses and strengths. And some might pair up well together while others might not.

Now whatever your beliefs may be, the Chinese zodiac is an integral part of Chinese culture. And can be a super fun area to explore.

Primer

好了, 现在我们来看一下今天的语言点. It’s time to take a look at our language points for the day.

净. 净 functions as an adverb in today’s context and is the same as saying 总是 or always, invariably*12. In today’s dialogue 小刚 said 净吹牛, which means “you’re always bragging,” or “you’re always talking big.” Now another example could be 他净写错字. He’s always writing the wrong character. Or 北京的春天净刮大风. There is always a lot of winds during 北京’s spring.

这几天净下雨。／是啊，好无聊啊。

从今天开始，我要努力学习，再也不玩游戏了。／净说空话。

一口气. 一口气 is used before a verb phrase to imply with outbreak or interruption. 一口气 literally means in one breath. For example, 一口气喝完了一瓶水. I drank an entire bottle of water in one gulp. Now today we saw 一口气 used in this sentence. 一口气拿下了三个三分球. You hit three three-pointers back to back*13 or you hit three three-pointers in one breath.

我昨天一口气把这本小说读完了，真好看！／是吗？ 能借我看看吗？

Mike，这个绕口令你能一口气读完吗？／我试试。

也许. 也许 functions as an adverb in Chinese and means potentially or possibly, perhaps. 也许是骨折了. It might be a fracture. Now 也许 is pretty straightforward but just so you all can get a better feeling for it, let’s look at some more examples.